I feel like a kid again. Thanks to Ann Schatz’ invitation, I attended the launch of her new program, “Heart of the Matter” with a small group of invited guests to listen to and participate in an interview with Gloria Steinem. I felt like a groupie meeting a star of t
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BOOK LOVER I went to the used book store today with a few tomes to sell. Two of the novels had previously been rejected for resale, but I decided to bring them along for a third time in the hope the market had changed. The woman in line ahead of me had a sack of
READING: THEN AND NOW Recently, I finished reading a third novel by Haruki Murakami, “Sputnik Sweetheart.” As I closed the covers of the book for the last time, I had two impressions. The first was how pervasive western ideas were in much of the world. I have never been to
Favorite essay? One of the most memorable was written by Robert Oppenheimer about living a relative life. In sum, all points of view are relative and equal like the points of a compass but one must choose one direction to follow while understanding it has no higher merit than the
A REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) is a short story about a young married couple so poor that on their first Christmas together, each of them makes a sacrifice to provide a gift for the other. The wife cuts off her long
ANGELS AMONG US In March, I wrote about Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, “Never Let Me Go” (3/14/2011). It is the story of cloned children raised for the sole purpose of providing organs to others until the youngsters become “complete,” meaning they die. One of the passiona
A LITTLE BIT OF PREJUDICE REVEALED A friend, a former student from my teaching days in Zimbabwe, e-mailed a picture of one of her classmates the other day. It was a boy, now a middle aged man, with whom I had lost touch but liked very much. He had grown up to be farmer but was driven
THE LIGHT OF A THOUSAND CANDLES Earlier in the week, I stopped by a local gym to walk the treadmill for an hour instead of taking my usual turn through the park. The facility has several televisions hanging on the wall to help pass the time and so I pulled on my earphones to watch one
FLYING WITH WAX WINGS I was reminded of the story of Icarus last week as I sat reading the March edition of “Vogue” with its profile of the President and First Lady of Syria. Everyone is familiar with the story. It’s one of the first I heard as a child and the ancient Gr